{"id":326,"date":"2024-10-18T11:16:45","date_gmt":"2024-10-18T11:16:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automototransportas.lt\/index.php\/2024\/10\/18\/charged-evs-no-garage-no-driveway-no-problem-itselectric-is-bringing-curbside-ev-charging-to-the-us\/"},"modified":"2024-10-18T11:16:45","modified_gmt":"2024-10-18T11:16:45","slug":"charged-evs-no-garage-no-driveway-no-problem-itselectric-is-bringing-curbside-ev-charging-to-the-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/automototransportas.lt\/index.php\/2024\/10\/18\/charged-evs-no-garage-no-driveway-no-problem-itselectric-is-bringing-curbside-ev-charging-to-the-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Charged EVs | No garage, no driveway, no problem: itselectric is bringing curbside EV charging to\u00a0the US"},"content":{"rendered":"
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itselectric establishes best practices for curbside EV chargers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
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Millions of drivers around the world live in dense urban neighborhoods where they have no driveways, and thus no possibility of installing a home EV charger. That\u2019s a problem\u2014and the pre-eminent solution is curbside charging.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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Curbside charging is not the same as destination charging. To fit into the urban streetscape, a curbside charger needs to be compact, and it doesn\u2019t need an attached cable to create clutter and tripping hazards. That\u2019s why itselectric designed its own charger, with a detachable cable.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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\u00a0itselectric\u2019s chargers get their power from host properties, behind the meter. This avoids the expense and delays involved in getting a utility interconnection\u2014a major challenge for many public charging projects.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
Q&A with itselectric co-founder and CEO Nathan King.<\/strong><\/p>\n
For the last few years, the EV industry has been agonizing over the problem of providing charging for urban drivers who depend on on-street parking, and have no possibility of installing chargers at their homes. EV journalists, including your favorite, have spilled much virtual ink over what once seemed an intractable issue that threatened to hobble the EV transition.<\/p>\n
Nowadays however, a visit to some of the world\u2019s most electrified cities makes the solution plain: lots and lots of curbside public chargers. In Europe, Oslo, Amsterdam and London fit this description, as do several Chinese cities. The US is just starting to catch on to the potential of curbside charging, and this presents opportunities for North American operators to learn from what is and isn\u2019t working in Europe.<\/p>\n
The field of public EV charging is divided into several categories\u2014curbside charging is not the same as destination charging, workplace charging or highway fast charging. Successfully deploying curbside charging requires creative ways of thinking about the hardware, the business model, and the supply of electrical power, as Nathan King, co-founder and CEO of curbside pioneer itselectric, explained to Charged<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n
Charged<\/em>: I\u2019m keen on curbside at the moment, because I just got back from London, where I saw lots of EVs, and lots of curbside chargers. Your company focuses on curbside charging, and you approach things differently from the typical charge point operator. For one thing, you use a behind-the-meter power connection for your chargers.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Nathan King: <\/strong>That\u2019s definitely one of the things we are doing differently. I would say most of the companies that are operating as curbside charging networks are based on a direct-to-utility connection.<\/p>\n
Also, in North America, we haven\u2019t really seen a network operator come to the curbside charging space. Where you do see curbside charging in North America, it\u2019s based on an OEM model where the companies are selling the chargers to a utility or to a municipality, which then owns and operates them. What we\u2019re trying to do is to bring the network operator model to the US, but skip some of the permitting difficulty that you encounter when you\u2019re trying to connect directly to a utility main.<\/p>\n
Charged<\/em>: So the ChargePoints and the EVgos of the world aren\u2019t doing curbside charging?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Nathan King:\u00a0<\/strong>Well, you will occasionally see a ChargePoint charger in the roadway. There\u2019s actually a handful in the District of Columbia. But in that case, DC is procuring the chargers and installing them. New York City also has some chargers on the curbside. Those were made by a Canadian company called Flo, which sold the chargers to the city for them to operate.<\/p>\n\n
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\u201cIn North America, we haven\u2019t really seen a network operator come to the curbside charging space. The Level 2 charging industry really is based on an OEM model.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n
The Level 2 charging industry in North America really is based on an OEM model. Companies like ChargePoint and Blink build the chargers, and try to get them procured by cities. Then the cities or the utilities have to figure out how to own and operate those chargers. We take the logistics of doing the installations and operation away from cities and utilities, and we earn revenue from the chargers ourselves. So, we\u2019re not actually selling chargers, we\u2019re installing and operating them.<\/p>\n
This is how it\u2019s being done in the EU and the UK. We\u2019re trying to bring this owner\/operator model to the US, and curbside is an area where that model is possible because there\u2019s really high utilization potential. If you put a charger in, for example, a supermarket parking lot, you won\u2019t expect 24\/7 use of that charger because people are doing opportunity charging. Maybe they\u2019re plugged in for one or two hours while shopping. For a Level 2 charger, that\u2019s not a ton of power that\u2019s being transferred over those couple of hours.<\/p>\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n
But when you put a charger on the curbside, that charger can be used by people who live in that neighborhood and park their cars on the street overnight every day. So now you have 24\/7 availability to hundreds or thousands of vehicles that park within walking distance of that charger, and you see high utilization.<\/p>\n
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